O frabjous Mac!
October 24, 2006 by cynthia
If you’ve had the fortitude to slog through my blogposts, you’ve read of my curious addiction to Apple’s MacBook Pro line and how I almost bought one last August.
I didn’t because I’d heard of a couple issues with the MBP and–since I hate buying first generation gadgetry–the high probability that gen2 would fix those issues and maybe add some bells and whistles was enough to make me wait. My mother graciously agreed (thanks, Mom) to let me borrow her laptop for my consulting travels until the new MBP arrived. I promised her it would only be a couple of weeks.
Famous last words–it’s now the end of October.
But Apple posted the announcement today, and about an hour after I read through the new specs I ordered one. I’m not kidding myself about primarily using this thing as a kind of second class citizen in the Mac world, however. I run Windows, my clients run Windows, and I fully expect to continue running Windows.
But ever since I dumped my Macs to take a job with Intel I’ve missed the little beasties. (And felt awfully guilty about that…)
You have no idea how rabid Intellites could be about Macs before they started supplying the chips. I was once visited by a group of Intel IT engineers who had discovered a batch of publication files I’d stored that included .SIT (Mac archive) files. They furiously demanded an explaination. I explained that Macs were pretty standard stuff in the creative world, we had analogous Windows files and the designer had courteously included a .SIT in case we couldn’t find anyone but a Mac designer.
They were shocked (SHOCKED, I tell you!) to hear that the design world used Macs, but settled down when I told them we would never inhale, er, access the stuff except in a great emergency. “See that you don’t,” warned one.
Apple’s helping to save the Intel day is causing some significant culture shift over there, I suspect. 
Anyway, I’ve ordered my MacBook Pro, a 15-incher with maxed out graphics and memory plus Parallels, the software that lets you run a dual Mac/Windows environment. By my calculations it should be here early next week. That’ll give me some time to get over the (ulp) sticker shock, and to figure out if I want to just load up the extra license of XP I already have, or wait for Vista.
Can’t wait. Neither can my laptop-less mom…
I am so glad I found your site today! I was *very* impressed with your posts in the thread on collecting art in Business Topics on WG.com. I was searching to see if Lani had officially posted the compatibility-for-three-firings-at-1500-degrees-for -10-minutes-each rule and was much more entertained by your thread. Thanks to your link in your sig, I came here, and I will be back! Nice studio set-up in your post below. Too bad you’re in Portland and so far away, I was going to invote you over to see my set-up and exchange notes!
Brenda